


Tea With Sugar

by binz



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Morgan Family Feels, Post-rationing sugar indulgence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 12:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5128352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/pseuds/binz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At her new home in Brooklyn, Abigail enjoys some of the sweeter things in life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea With Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the first Forever Contest via [The Castle Hiatus Writing Contest. Thanks for running the contest, castlehiatus group!](http://castlehiatuscontest.tumblr.com/post/132379836530/and-the-winners-of-the-first-forever-contest-are)

Her tea is much too sweet. She’s put in two spoonfuls already, and the cup isn’t that large, fits neatly in the nest of her curved palms, but the sugar bowl is still nearly full and more than nearly tempting, tucked away on the kitchen table beside a vase of wildflowers. 

Henry had cheerfully lied to her face about those, handing them over and swearing up and down that Abe had picked them for her on their walk home from the shops. They’d both been wearing enough dirt for that to be true, but Abe had grabbed for them while she fetched the vase, stuffing an innocent aster into his mouth, and she rather suspects that any bouquet Abraham had picked would have become a salad long before it made its way home.

“Maaaa,” Abe says from the kitchen doorway, and reaches for her from Henry’s arms, dripping water and sweet-smelling suds. 

“Oh goodness,” she says, setting her teacup down quickly and holding out her arms so Henry can pass him over. “Look at you!”

“Thank you, I-- oh, careful, darling,” Henry says after she rests Abraham on her knee, a beat too late. “He’s quite wet. I’m afraid I forgot the towels,” he adds sheepishly, nodding towards the door to their scant little balcony, three feet of poured concrete currently done up with lines of gently flapping laundry. 

The wash has been hanging out for an hour or more, since Henry and Abe had left, and after four months in New York it’s still surprising that it might already be done. But it’s warm, so warm for June, sunny and bright, and she’s hardly going to complain that it isn’t the grey, rainy weather she’d grown up with... especially when it helps the laundry dry. Henry’s in his shirtsleeves, cuffs popped and folded back to his elbows, but he’s still soaked through to the skin. She can see the pink of his chest where he was cradling Abe, and splashes of water across his thighs from Abe’s bath. 

Their little toilet is just big enough for her to need to stretch to reach all four walls from the centre of the room. There’s probably water sprayed up to the ceiling-- and soap suds too, going by the sunlight glinting off the little bubbles caught in Henry’s hair. 

“I can see that,” she says, and can’t help the laugh hiding in her voice. “Look at the pair of you. Abraham, look what you did to your daddy. Did you take him swimming with you?”

Abe beams, he’s such a happy baby, and pats at her cheeks. “Maaa,” he says again, grabbing a handful of her hair.

“Careful, careful,” Henry says, catching Abe’s little fist and coaxing his hand open. “Don’t hurt Mummy.”

Her hair falls free, and she quickly brushes it back, plucking a clover flower from the vase and teasing Abraham’s nose with it. He laughs, round cheeks jiggling, and they play keep away until Henry swoops in with a towel and scoops Abe back up.

He bundles Abe like he’s packing his bedroll, earning shrieks and giggles, and pulls their second kitchen chair over, sitting down gratefully next to Abigail. Abraham manages to wriggle one chubby arm from the swaddling to grab the clover she’s forgotten she’s holding, and eats it. 

“Good morning, darling,” Henry says, although it’s almost noon, and reaches over Abraham to take her tea with only a tiny hint of desperation. He sips-- coughs, startled, and grimaces. She covers her mouth for all the good it will do to hide her smile; the poor man just doesn’t have the taste for too much sugar.

“Sorry, dear,” she says, and she truly is, but it doesn’t stop her from taking her cup back and spooning another serving of sugar into it. The grains catch as she stirs, and she can smell how sweet it is on the lingering steam, pale and milky and perfect. 

Henry watches her, half amazed, half horrified, and she raises the teacup to her mouth and drinks. 

It is much, much too sweet. But delicious, and she’s going to drink it all in the memory of every cold night when there was no sugar, and sometimes no tea, and she really must remember to arrange another package of goods to be sent to her parents in Oxfordshire. Her poor mother would simply die to have this much sugar to waste in tea.

“When I was a boy,” Henry starts, “the Sugar Tax--”

She loves to hear about his childhood, loves to imagine his mobile face so much younger, all the mischief he pretends he never found for himself, but those thoughts can be so cold for such a warm day, each year stretching out between them like a line of frost on the window. She almost stops him, almost, but Abraham reaches out and upturns the sugar bowl.

“Oh!” she says, jumping to her feet, and grabs the bowl before it hits the ground. Henry leaps up, shifting Abe to one arm, and tries to catch the loose sugar before it runs off the table. Abe chews happily at his own fist.

“I’ll get the broom,” Abigail says, setting the bowl back in the mess. “You tell Mister Abraham about the Sugar Tax.”

“He certainly has your sweet tooth,” Henry says, dryly. “But I’ll save tales of the past for another time.” She leans forward, and he tucks Abe between them, and she meets him over Abraham’s head for a quick kiss before hurrying away for the broom.

It’s about time she gets started on the day’s list of chores anyway; it’s not often she and Henry are both home from the hospital on the same day, and she won’t waste the rest of it away drinking tea, no matter how nice and sweet it might be.


End file.
